I found a Senior Software Engineer role for Golang at MessageBird on LinkedIn and applied immediately. The HR called for a detailed discussion about my skills and experience. My answers impressed them, and they confirmed they could meet my expected CTC. The interview process was well-structured: 1. **First Round:** Interview with the hiring manager to test proactive thinking and decision-making. I performed well and moved to the next round. 2. **Second Round:** A two-hour session split into technical coding and system design. In the coding round, I faced four challenges but didn't perform as well as expected. The system design round involved designing a scalable SMS system. I was overconfident and didn't pause for feedback. The next day, HR informed me that I didn't clear the technical coding round, and my system design approach was too rigid. However, this experience helped me identify my weaknesses, and I decided to reapply after three months, preparing thoroughly. When I reapplied, the process was similar but with a different panel. I cleared the first round and performed much better in the second round, optimizing my code and executing a well-prepared system design. Despite my confidence, HR took four days to respond, eventually informing me that while I cleared the system design, they wanted another coding round on DSA. Although I felt this was unfair, I took the DSA round, completed it with an optimized solution, and clarified my choices with the interviewer. Despite positive feedback, I was rejected because my solution lacked a mutex check for deadlock handling. This experience made me feel they were expecting robotic precision, not human capabilities. Their complex interview process and unrealistic expectations, especially given the CTC, seem designed to pressure candidates. I advise fellow Indians to avoid applying here to prevent wasting time and effort and doubting their own abilities.

I applied for the role online, and got an invitation for a recruiter screening call of half an hour 2 weeks later. The recruiter is very nice and helps guide the extensive process Next was a functional interview with an engineering manager for 45 minutes, Scheduled 1.5 week after the recruiter screening, It got moved because the person I was supposed to interview with was double booked. The interview was about personal motivators and project/product experiences and overall fit. Next was a 1 hour programming skills interview, where an assignment is given during the interview and I was expected to code a working solution to this while sharing my screen. Next was a 1 hour Distributed system design session. Next was a 45 minute bar raiser, where soft skills are evaluated, where there was also a lot of time to ask general questions. Next was an executive interview of 30 minutes. This interview was also double booked, so also had to be rescheduled. After this I got a verbal offer slightly above my requested salary. Up to this point almost exactly 2 months had passed, and including all the calls with the recruiter, blocked time slots for rescheduled calls and all the planning the interview process had taken about 15 hours. After accepting the verbal offer, I was asked to complete background screenings with validata and hireright. For that also a VOG has to be requested. The validata screening was not intensive at all, but hireright asks all documentation including pay slips, contracts, contract termination agreements for each and every job in the past. Collecting and uploading all these documents cost me another 20 hours. When a written offer finally arrived (95k), it was littered with weird clauses and you have to basically sign your life away if you want to work here. - By signing the employment agreement you agree to an "On call policy" that was not mentioned during the interview process and that was attached to the employment agreement. After asking for the contents of it it becomes clear that you are on call twice a month for 2 weeks (also outside office hours), with only a few hunderd euros extra compensation. - By signing the employment agreement you agree to the pension plan, but what is nowhere mentioned is that the pension is deducted from that yearly salary, resulting in a lot lower net compensation - By signing the employment agreement you have to agree on not doing any paid or unpaid jobs without prior consent. When asking for that consent it is not given, even for a company that was already in my name a year before I applied for the position and that I had mentioned during the recruiter screening. (I only spend a few hours a week on this hobby project) The only option that was given here was to deregister my company if I wanted to start working here. When I verbally accepted the offer, I had already stopped at my previous employer, resulting in me not having a job lined up when I decided MessageBird was not the right company for me and that these clauses were too restrictive.